Putin passes the test, along with the country

27.05.2016

Four years ago Vladimir Putin was elected President of Russia. The first two times, Putin was elected President back then, when the powers of the head of state was measured at four years, but now is extended to six years. In the remaining two years Putin will not prepare for re-election, he is busy with geopolitics and the reform of the economic system of the country.

If in 2009, not adopted amendments to the Constitution, then we would chose the President.

“Rival Putin may not appear: as long as people trust him, he has no alternative, because the trust is not divided in two”

They would again become Putin, but the election campaign would bring big money to the spin doctors and PR candidates, and would be spent by those who understood that there are no chances to win in elections there, but need to confirm its status as the main opposition party or growing over a former oligarch, now a promising politician. In General, candidates would work for the future, and the elections themselves would be very expensive sociological poll of the population. The increase in the period moved the elections from 2016 to 2018, and now the party is passionate about the upcoming elections to the state Duma.

And the President can go beyond simple poll – according to the latest VTSIOM, Putin is ready to vote, 74 percent of voters. This is 10 percent higher than the result of the elections of March 2012 and almost twice more than give the polls the fall of 2012. While for Putin, a year subjected to a massive information attack (which began after September 2011, when they announced his nomination for the presidency), were ready to vote only 40 percent. Those attacks have long been forgotten – after the Crimea supporters of the President were many of those, who in 2011-2012 was set against him. Increased his approval rating among supporters of opposition parties in the half among the Communists (to 25 percent), twice that among spravorossov (40 percent) and two and a half times among aldayarova (33 percent).

Putin finally became non-partisan President – with him is associated the popular front. In fact, Putin as head of state relies on a broad party coalition, which can be attributed to three parliamentary parties, and on foreign policy issues and the Communists. But not for political parties are the backbone of the President, the Central pillar is the people’s support. You can call it popularity, rating, but in fact, it’s all about trust. It is the people’s confidence in Putin is the source of its power, its independence from pressure groups, political or business circles, gives him the opportunity to pursue an independent foreign policy.

Confirmation of this support was the election, and in 2018, Putin will again have credibility. Yes, credit, because, even though people appreciate and support him for they have made no less a role in that vote for him again and again, playing and confidence, the hope, the expectation that Putin will go ahead, solve problems and meet challenges, to become stronger. That is, to do stronger Russia – because people see and believe that this is the main purpose of his life. Therefore, the vote for Putin in 2018 will be attributed to life “no good deed goes unpunished” or “horses in midstream is not, it will be both an evaluation of its activities in the previous period, and in advance for the future.

If the presidential campaign we began a year and a half before the election, as in the US, then the race unfolded would have been this fall, immediately after the Duma elections – but nothing like that will happen.

If in America, choose the General Manager the Executive power – with rather limited States and Congress the power of something we are talking about real elections of the head of state. In Russia power is now concentrated in the Kremlin, and none of the former oligarchs or elite clans cannot manipulate the President, nor to impose his will. The device itself is the power vertical in the country is still in the process of finding the optimum form after the destruction of the Soviet model, in which a vertical rod was the party and government organs built from the lowest level to the highest, from the earth to the Kremlin, the new structure is still evolving. Vertical from the village to Moscow is not restored – go search how to combine vital strengthening of local self-government with the need for effective vertical of power. The President is not just chief Executive – he is the guarantor of the Constitution in the broadest sense of the word. In the conditions of a Federal state, with a transient, unstable socio-economic model in a period of increasing external storm from it really depends very much. Therefore, more experienced than the head of state, the calmer people about the future of the country.

Time limits were written into our Constitution under the influence of Western models, but what is right for the United States or France, does not meet the Russian tradition. There the President is only a part of the ruling nomenklatura, the real power is in the hands of the financial-political elite, fairly narrow range, mostly formed by the hereditary principle. In fact, the President of France or the United States is acting CEO of the Corporation, the shareholders of which are formally all citizens of the state, but the controlling stake and strategic decision making which is assigned to the Board of Directors, and can not be re-elected (ordinary “shareholders”) or to disperse (“the Director General”). Yes, this CEO choose at a General meeting of all shareholders, but he understands the rules of the game and not even trying to oppose the “Board of Directors”. In Russia the role of the President is fundamentally different: the head of state is not a puppet of his environment, not the head of the elite, and controlling and occasionally punishing the instrument of the people, one who defends the interests of the people, forcing the item or creating the new composition.

Therefore, the change of the head of state is happening in Russia or in the result of a conspiracy of the elite are dissatisfied with them, or as a result of losing the confidence of the people. To ensure that people have decided to change Putin for someone else, he should leave the trust, lose popular support. Rival Putin may not appear exactly for this reason – while people trust him, he has no alternative, because the trust is not divided in two. Support Yeltsin at the turn of the 90s was the result of disappointment in Gorbachev – in the eyes of the people he failed much earlier than the Soviet Union collapsed. And that is the loss of confidence in Gorbachev allowed so easily to promote Yeltsin.

Can people be disappointed in Putin? Experience his leadership of the country does not give reasons for these expectations – he may not agree on certain issues, assume its wrong economic course, to condemn the secrecy of his personal life, to demand from him greater rigidity to the item, but still see him as working for the benefit of the country people.

It changes along with the country, is undergoing trials with the country, looking for answers and recipes, makes decisions and tries to achieve their performance, bears a huge responsibility for everything, good and bad. His only political privilege – he may not think about the election.

And this is really important and good for him, and for all of us, because if Putin thought about the re-election, he would be as unscrupulous and is aware of his helplessness before the face of really important issues a politician, as most observed by us in the West “people first”. And so he can “just” manage the government – and nobody will distract the “fateful election” neither he nor the Russian people from the really important work for the development of Russia. At least, until 2024.